And Why You?

After a crazy day of travel, December 31 was bound to be a little less eventful, and it was. Matt, Jeremy and I headed out around the city of Minneapolis to check things out on a day where it was no warmer than 10 degrees Fahrenheit. We woke up and it was -9 degrees out!

We checked out the new Guthrie Theatre and the Walker Art Museum and did some driving around a couple lakes (Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun to be exact). We then did some shopping for dinner including a stop to the liquor store.

When we got back, we took a bit of a nap, which was very welcome. Then it was time for dinner.

Dinner consisted of “snacks” which was a great idea. We had some deli salads, sushi, cheese and crackers, petit fours and more. It was a good way to spend NYE dinner.

We then went off to Jeremy’s friend’s place for the NYE party. The place was a beautiful loft which apparently was just sold, so this was the last big hurrah. It was a bit of a fun time, but Jeremy and Matt and I decided to head home right before new year’s to enjoy it at home with each other. We stopped off to get some pizza on the way and got home with about 5 minutes to go before New Year’s. We all said happy new year to each other and then turned on family guy for a couple episodes and then it was time to bed.

One thing (other than the cold) that has been notable about my time here: every time I have gone to sleep here, I have had very vivid dreams, a couple of which I remember, but I won’t recount here. It’s just been very interesting that I have had so many vivid dreams.

Today, we are going to have a nice luncheon at home and then we are planning to see the movie Milk. Should be a nice low key start to the new year. Lord knows that I could use a bit of low key right now.

Happy New Year all!!!!

Right now I am sitting on a place in Duluth, Minnesota. For those who don’t know, Duluth is about a 3-hour drive (and about a 30 minute flight) from Minneapolis, which is my intended destination ultimately for today. Here’s a lovely rundown of what has happened so far:

The day started pretty routinely with my brother-in-law taking me to T.F. Green Airport in Providence for my two-leg flight to Minneapolis. My flight was supposed to leave at 9 a.m. About 8:45, they came on the horn and told us that there will be a delay in taking off, not because of mechanical issues; not because of weather; but because the oxygen tanks on the plane had gotten too HOT overnight (how this happens in winter, I am still at a loss), and they needed to wait for the tanks to cool down before we could take off. We were off about 1 hour 10 minutes late, and I realized that it was pretty much gonna be the case that I was going to miss my connecting flight in Detroit.

We landed in Detroit at precisely the time of departure of my connection. Thanks very much Northwest. I got into Detroit terminal and they had already re-routed me on the next flight, so that was pretty smooth. Plus, the next flight was only about 1.5 hours after the one I missed, so all was looking up.

We took off from Detroit and the flight was pretty smooth. I got a good nap and we were on course for landing in Minneapolis. About 30 minutes before our scheduled landing time, the flight crew came on to tell us that we were going to have to be in a holding pattern for a bit. No worries I thought…more time to nap.

About 10 minutes after that, they came back on to tell us that only one runway was open in Minneapolis and because we were a smaller plane, we would need to divert the flight to Duluth for refueling.

So here I am now in Duluth. The latest update is that we are number 8 in line for refueling, it’s going to be at least 90 minutes before we takeoff again, and Minneapolis is working out the arrival pattern right now for all flights that have been delayed/diverted. They did say that as a diverted aircraft we have precedence, but who knows how that works.

UGH
UGH
UGH

People are in good spirits now, but it’s going to be a rough one if it turns out to be a lot later than the estimates. Also, it sounds like they are running out of food.

This reminds me of the movie Airplane 2: The Sequel:

Male Passenger: Miss, are you telling us ABSOLUTELY everything?

Elaine: Not exactly, we’re also out of coffee.

Cut to pandemonium in the aisles.

I DID, however, get a nice sunset shot while we were waiting for our fuel. Enjoy.

It's been a short but sweet trip to Britain before my big trip to the US. Today was a very quiet day in Somerset with Graham. We watched a movie and bummed around the house, and then we took the drive toward London. Along the way, we got to stop at Stonehenge, which was a nice thing since I have wanted to see Stonehenge since I was in Britain in 2006. It was quite windy and cool there, but it was so very worth it.

I am now on my way to snowy Boston. My flight leaves in two hours and I am hoping that the weather clears in time for me to land over there. Here's hoping! For now, here are some photos of Stonehenge. See you stateside!

So it is early evening in Crewkerne, County Somerset, here in England. I spent the day visiting the English countryside, strolling the seaside, and having an amazing afternoon tea. But first, let me back up to yesterday.

The flight from Singapore to London on the A380 was good. I was on the upper deck of the plane in economy class. Overall, it was a good experience. What was nice about it was that the seating configuration was better on the upper deck. But it got a lot better than that. There was only one seat next to me, but there was also an ample storage bin between my window seat and the actual window. It was quite a treat since I always seem to have all my gadgets in the seat pocket. This way, I was able to keep them out of there, which kept my legroom at the maximum.

When I landed, I was dreading the passport line at Heathrow, but it ended up being not too bad at all. I believe I waited no more than 20 minutes (a new record!), and I was on my way to baggage claim. There, I also found my bag pretty quickly. All in all, I was headed for the exit in about 45 minutes. At the exit, my mate Graham was waiting for me. Graham and I met on Facebook about a month ago, and we have been chatting ever since. We kinda hit it off online, on the phone and on Skype. In person, it was just as nice. We hopped in his car and headed on the 2.5 hour drive to his home in Crewkerne. At that point I pretty much collapsed from all the travel.

This morning, we headed off to a quick breakfast in a local cafe (it was marginal at best). We then took the car and headed all around the area. We went to Lyme Regis, Charmouth, Weymouth, and Swyne (where we had a great afternoon tea of tea, freshly made scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam). The weather was a bit crisp (but not too cold), but the sun peeked out a few times which was nice. I got some nice photos (see below)

This evening will be a quiet one I think. Graham and I are gonna watch some movies and have a lite dinner since afternoon tea was so heavy (and delicious!). The plan is to leave for Boston tomorrow evening, pending the weather. Apparently, it's supposed to snow heavily. I hope it clears in time for me to get in there to see the family and start the US leg of my trip.

Here are some photos from the travel and from today. Enjoy!

So I made my way to the Airport Lounge and I am having a quick bite and getting ready for my A380 flight. I must say I am a little excited (and, as always, a little nervous) to be flying today. I took a photo of my boarding pass:



I love that is says "UPPER DECK". Woo hoo! If you go to www.seatguru.net, you can see the seating configuration and see where I am. I am basically toward the back of the plane on the upper deck, but the good thing is that I am in a seating configuration where there will be only one person next to me, as opposed to the lower deck where there are three seats on the sides. It's a win win :)

The flight to London is about 14 hours, so I will hopefully be able to get some photos on the flight to share with my friends (and there seem to be more and more of them) who are very interested in my taking this flight.

Well, that's all to report here. Until next post from London!

Yesterday was a pretty packed day. I started off getting some breakfast at a cafe located at a shopping centre not too far from the hotel. I spent the breakfast checking out information on the Great Barrier Reef. Hmmm...could that be the next big trip? :)

So I came to Gold Coast on the weekend of the biggest sporting event in the state: the Indy Car 300. While I am not much of a racing fan, and considering the fact that I snagged a free ticket, I decided to check it out for a little bit. There was of course a lot of people that fit the bill (think NASCAR in the US), but the experience wasn't altogether bad. The experience of being that close to the cars was a bit of a rush (if not a bit of a headache inducer) and there was horrible food (think of carnival food), but there were nice views :)

After that experience, I decided to drop some dough at the casino. It was a casino like any other, just that there were a bunch of people with Australian accents :) It was a fun time even though I lost.

I then headed off and got some Mexican food for dinner, which was not very good. the excitement of the nite was at the restaurant when a couple guys left without paying. There was a bit of an incident when the guys came back into the restaurant. They were cursing and some other patrons nearby started laying into them telling them to not use that kind of language. It didn't come to blows, but it was close.

Well, it's been a nice week or so in the area. I am happy to head back home and see Cubby and get back to the routine. The next trip will probably be heading home in December, but there might be something else in the meantime. We'll see what I can cross off the list :)

Here are some photos from yesterday, including a video of the car race. Enjoy!

So I got up a little early yesterday and saw my buddy Richard off as he was heading back to Sydney, and I hopped in the car and headed down to my next destination: Gold Coast. It's about an hour or so drive south of Brisbane and supposed to be the major domestic holiday destination for Australians. It's one of those places with all the attractions: theme parks, wax museums, casinos...you know, the works. This also has about 30 miles of coastline that is quite beautiful.

I got to my hotel, which was more apartment building than hotel, and I got into my apartment which is very nice. The first floor is a foyer, a living/dining/kitchen area, 2 balconies, and a laundry room. The second level is a twin bed and nightstand in an alcove, a bathroom, a main bedroom, and a large balcony that has an outdoor patio set that seats 6. All this and it only cost $130 Australian Dollars ($80 US) per night.

Once I got settled in the apartment, I headed out for a drive. I headed through the main town of Gold Coast called Surfers Paradise. There is a car race going on this weekend, and when I drove by, the sound was deafening. There were also tons of people of course that were flocking around. I was happy to have shuttled right through there. I ended up stopping at an area of the beach called Burleigh Heads. It was this nice stretch of beach that had two rock formations flanking the area.

After Burleigh Heads, I drove back the way I came and stopped in Surfers Paradise, a bit of distance away from the racing. I parked the car and hopped on the beach for a little look-see. While I was on the beach, there must have been some kind of event at the race track that involved jets, because a jet came flying right over my head. There were a couple of times this happened, and I got one of them on the movie function on my camera.

After the beach, I headed to an Indian restaurant for some lunch. I then headed back to my hotel for a little early evening rest. I then went out in search of dinner and settled on Subway and then headed back to the hotel where I stayed the rest of the night.

Here are a few photos from yesterday, including Burleigh Heads and the bustling skyline of Surfers Paradise in the distance. Tomorrow it's back to Singapore!

Here are the photos as promised...

Whenever I have headed to Aussie over the past year, I have usually spent some time inside of the city and I have tried to take advantage of some time outside the city. Day 3 was my "outside the city" time. My mate Richard and I rented a car and headed off toward Mount Tamborine, an interior area about 1 hour south of Brisbane. The area is apparently one that is quite good for hang gliding. No, I did not actually do that, but I could see why this was the case.

We started off at a cheese shop called Witches Chase. They did all their own cheeses, yogurts and other items. We sampled what seemed like almost all the cheeses, and we decided to purchase two of them: a chili gouda and a cloth bound cheddar. YUM.

We then headed off exploring the area driving nearly the entire area checking out different lookout points and such. After some time there, we decided to head off down toward Lamington National Park, which according to my travel book, was a must see. We headed south toward the national park road, and we were on our way. Our destination was a place called O'Reilly's, although we didn't really know what this was. At least it was a place to aim. O'Reilly's ended up being about 35-40 kms away and was on the other side of some very winding mountain roads, some of which which suitable for only one lane at a time. When we got to O'Reilly's, we found it was a big mountain resort. There were a few things there, but not much in the end. We pretty much turned around, and because of the remoteness of this place, the only way to get out was to go back the way we came. It actually ended up being nice because it was one of those drives where the view looked completely different driving back.

The GPS in the rental car conked out and we were trying to figure out why. It seemed like the power outlet in the car was malfunctioning. We called Avis on the way back and it looked like we had to head over to the airport to get it checked out. It was a bit of an inconvenience, but it did turn out to be a fault of the car, and we were given a luxury car in its place. Not a bad switch. After that, we headed back to the room for some relaxation.

Dinner was at a place called era in South Brisbane. It was a place we had settled on after we made a couple of attempts to find a good Mexican restaurant. We had some drinks and some tapas, and then we were off to the bar for a couple more drinks.

Today is my trip down to Gold Coast. There is some Indy car racing event this weekend which might make it a bit crowded, but it should be nice to visit nonetheless.

I will post some pics of yesterday a little later. Until then!

So one thing I will say for Brisbane: the weather is great. Day 2 was a nearly picture perfect day almost all day. There was not a cloud in the sky for the majority of the day. The temperature was in the mid 70s and it was not too humid. SO NICE :)

The morning started with a quick shift over to my other hotel. I shifted because my mate Richard was heading up from Sydney, so we decided to take in a nicer room at a nicer hotel. After settling in there, we headed out to the river for a trip up and down to take in the great weather. It was quite nice. We got on what was a commuter boat, but it provided some nice views and some very nice breezes, which turned a little on the cool side in the mid-afternoon, but it was still quite nice. There is a bridge climb here (on a bridge called the Story Bridge) that is the same idea as the Sydney Harbour Bridge which I did back in 2003.

After the boat ride, it was time to just walk around a bit and meander back to the hotel to rest a bit before evening activities. We headed off to South Bank for some dinner at a place called The Point. It was quite nice. I had garlic sauteed portobello mushrooms with rocket and parmesan, and polenta with an olive and tomato ragout. We then headed back to the city area and headed into the casino for a little gambling. I naturally went to the blackjack table, as that is my game. I started off with $100 and was down to about $25 at one point, but I quickly brought it back and walked away winning $42.50. Woo hoo! Drinks on me...which is what we did next before we headed back for the evening.

Today, we are headed down to Mt. Tambourine, which is about halfway between here and Gold Coast. It should be a nice trip. Until next post, here are a couple pics. The casino is the second pic of the nice building mostly bathed in sunlight.